


Never Give Up…. Never Surrender

by tzigane, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Category: Galaxy Quest (1999)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:38:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzigane/pseuds/tzigane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I hate conventions."</i>
</p><p>Alexander always said it, and he always meant it, and despite that, he kept showing up to them. Then again, it was money. Eight years after the end of <i>GQ</i>, they were still going to them. Gwen still fit in the damned costume, and wasn't that a minor miracle? Especially considering how much sitting she did at the things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Give Up…. Never Surrender

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ancarett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancarett/gifts).



_1986_

The thing of it was that it had been her first real job in The Business.

Oh, there had been others. Everyone always had those _other_ jobs, the ones where the producer spent half an hour massaging her tits before agreeing that she could play whatever shrieking, dying bimbo starred in his latest horror flick. Gwen DeMarco: running, screaming, bleeding to death on the kitchen floor.

Needless to say, _Galaxy Quest_ had seemed infinitely better than that. There had only been fifteen minutes of fondling, and that had been strangely abstract. She was fairly certain that Paradiso, the producer, wasn't altogether fond of breasts. It had been a bit perfunctory, really, and he had never bothered to feel her up again.

Alexander, on the other hand....

Alexander was a reliable star in England. Lots of movies that involved a room with a view and a cup of tea and nuance. He'd worked in probably every royal stage company, and once in a while he still did theatre back home. But his first American foray had been _Galaxy Quest_.

It really was a shame, how people tended to be typecast after a thing like that.

Three full seasons and a fourth almost full one, and now they were down to this.

GQ-Con Number Six.

In all honesty, it was the same as Five, which had been much like Four and Three. The shine had long since begun to dull, somewhere between Comic-Con and the invitation they had just gotten to Dragon*Con.

If this was going to be the rest of her life, she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to face it. After all, there was a good chance it could get worse. She'd gotten a made for tv thing, with filming to start in two weeks, and it still didn't excite her, because that was type casting just as sure as Galaxy Quest.

All tits and no substance.

She sighed into the phone, digging in her refrigerator at the same time. The cord had coiled in on itself and she was going to end up strangling herself with it if it coiled anymore. "Honestly, Alex. I just don't know what to think."

 _"It pays the rent, doesn't it?"_ Which was a grim kind of outlook, but it was Alexander. _"I'm playing some villain in a horrible sci-fi thing back in England over the summer. Three days of filming, and I wager half the sets are going to be made out of cardboard tubing spray painted silver."_

Some things would always remain the same, sort of like the eternal presence of a half-empty juice bottle in the back of the fridge. "And that's a change from _Galaxy Quest_ how, exactly?" Not much of one, truth be told. "At least Paradiso isn't still pinching you to bruises every time you walk past the silver-painted cardboard control panels. Sometimes I think Jason is the only one who doesn't seem to mind all of this."

 _"Jason loved it. Probably more than he loved his mother."_ He sighed into the phone. _"It's no change at all except that it's British. Trash direct from the motherland. I have nothing for it."_

"You know, I really don't understand it." The juice was out of date, but the milk was still fine. It was too late for coffee, but just right for warm milk with a bit of vanilla and a hint of sugar. "He seems to thrive on it, and honestly, it just makes me exhausted. Conventions, traveling..." Trying to get a part that wasn't based on how well she acted when someone fondled her breasts. Jason just didn't bother, where the rest of them were still trying to work, preferably in something other than science fiction.

Not that it was working, but Jason wallowed in it. Alexander snorted into the phone, probably going through the same motions as she was. _"Psychic delight to know that we're talking about him behind his back."_

Gwen put the milk on the counter and searched out a pot. "Now you're talking horror movie content, Alex, like he's feeding off of it."

 _"It's the only explanation I can come up with,"_ Alexander shrugged into the phone. _"Do you have a better one?"_

She sighed. Might as well confess, she supposed. "No." No, and that made both of them sort of sad sacks, didn't it? Alex had a yen for him, she still held out hope, and neither of them would ever come anything close to one stupid sci-fi show that hadn't even run a full four seasons. With a flick of her wrist, she poured milk into the pot and set it on the burner to warm. "But still."

Still. She knew he understood.

_"Still. Are you drinking coffee? I almost feel as if we should make a toast. To... failed careers, the people who don't realize they're forever typecast and enjoy it, and obsessive fans?"_

"Oh, honestly." Except yes. Yes, that was more or less the long and short of it. "Warm milk, actually. You know I can't sleep if I have coffee any time after five or so in the afternoon."

 _"I could fall asleep right now, despite it."_ She heard him snort. _"I'll leave you to your restful sleep, though. I suspect we'll be seeing enough of each other at the next conference."_

They always did. "And then you're going overseas, so I suppose I won't see you again until the one after that. My God, Atlanta. Really?"

_"Atlanta. Not how I enjoy seeing the city. Have you been to Atlanta without the dressed up fans, the bizarre structure of a conference? Just to enjoy the city?"_

Gwen couldn't help laughing. "Between conventions and casting calls? I would love to enjoy the city. It's just...." Just that she had a house payment to make, and a car payment, and not enough time to go on vacation halfway across the country for the fun of it. It wasn't like they got paid that much for _Galaxy Quest_ , almost-four seasons or no. "You know how it is."

She'd seen his apartment.

 _"Still, I'm older than you are. It's a hell of a thing to be young and stop really living."_ Which might've been as close to career counseling as he would ever give anyone. It made her grateful and a little resentful all at once, but she knew he meant well.

"There will be time. Eventually." Never mind that it would probably always be eventually. "In any case. I've got to be up early in the morning. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

 _"Right. Goodnight, Gwen."_ Brusque, to the point. He even hung up before she could linger, because he probably had a to-do list of things that single men did when they were alone in their apartments. Practice the script for whatever his next horrible outing was.

Better not to think about what else he might be doing too much at the moment. It was better instead to pour her milk into a cup and make the necessary addition before taking it into the bedroom with her. Slightly too-warm milk and a racy novel. It wasn't much of an evening, maybe, but it was what she had.

It would just have to do.

* * *

  


_1992_   
_"I hate conventions."_

Alexander always said it, and he always meant it, and despite that, he kept showing up to them. Then again, it was money. Eight years after the end of _GQ_ , they were still going to them. Gwen still fit in the damned costume, and wasn't that a minor miracle? Especially considering how much sitting she did at the things.

"No you don't." Except that she knew he did. Jason always seemed so... at ease, she supposed, as if the adulation and general hero worship were only natural, something he deserved. "Or at least not as much as poor Fred."

 _"I'm not even sure Fred is actually... on this planet."_ He sighed into the phone. _"Is it actually enjoyment when nothing phases you?"_

"I think that's called cynicism, Alex, and no one does it like you do it." Which was also true. Alexander had a special way with it, and she had come to enjoy it greatly over the years. "Fred's just.. having a hard time."

 _"A hard time. Aren't we all having a hard time?"_ There was a rumor that Alexander had had a brief fling with a stagehand for some nearly on Broadway play. Gwen hadn't felt compelled to ask much about it except she halfway wondered if the story actually did involve heroin and Alexander's sofa.

Probably not. Weed, maybe, but Alexander wasn't the sort to tempt fate. "I know." She did, truly. It had been weeks since she had worked, although she was lucky enough to have made a few investments that had paid off well enough that she didn't have a house payment anymore. Still, it was nice to buy groceries now and again, so. Lacking respectable work (if that last horror movie could be called respectable, all things considerable), there were always conventions.

She wasn't too interested in when she got around to having to do things like selling her hair clippings at conventions to get enough money set aside so that she could make it to the next one even if she didn't find acting in between. _"I'd ask how you've been. Actually, no, I will. How've you been?"_

That was a good question. "Oh, you know. Coming and going. I broke it off with Tom again." Alexander had never liked him, anyway. "So I've spent most of the last couple of weeks eating ice cream." Which wasn't a good sign for the stupid uniform, was it?

She slouched a little, staring at her stomach for a moment. _"Stop that. Moping after the arsehole -- there's no point, and it only makes it worse if he comes crawling back."_

"No, I'm... he isn't coming back. I, um." It had been a hell of a fight. Gwen seemed to recall saying extraordinarily disparaging things about his penis. The main problem, if she wanted to be honest with herself, was that he was too much Tom and not enough.... Well. "I was a little....

 _"Harsh?"_ And it was hard to guess that Alexander wasn't harsh when it came to a breakup, but she'd never dated him. _"You can never be too harsh."_

Maybe not, especially since the reasons she had been dating him had been so blatantly obvious in retrospect. He'd looked like Jason with a tongue as sharp as Alexander's, and really. Really? She had finally just needed to admit it. "Actually, I think harsh might be... something of a misnomer. I was vicious, Alex. I sincerely doubt that he would have so much as a kind word for me."

 _"Did you kill any of his pets or cut his brake lines?"_ Alexander rattled that off with a frightening amount of calm. Maybe the heroin story had been true.

Gwen had never been the kind to try anything like that; she had always been firmly convinced that she would be the person who died in the first botched attempt. It was probably for the best. "No, but I did call the girl he was running around with and told her he had problems keeping it up."

 _"You would've thought she'd notice."_ Alexander seemed thoughtful. _"Huh. Well, there's no fixing a cheater."_

It seemed like a backhanded reference to the fact that Jason was taking engagements without them. He was getting paid a significant amount for those, as well. None of them were all that happy about it, but most of them were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, he could be having financial difficulties; maybe he needed it more than they did. Gwen wasn't sure she could see how, what with Fred's divorce and the recent death of Tommy's father, but still. "It's sadly true."

She could hear the sigh that followed that before Alexander actually gave it, which said they spent too much time like that. _"Hell. I've dated enough of that sort. They're not worth the agony."_

Almost certainly true.

"Oh, I know. I know, that would be why I left all of his crap in a box on the front sidewalk twenty minutes before he was due home." A respectable amount of it had been gone by the time he had come in, too, considering he had been with that trollop. If he had actually come home when he should have, it wouldn't have been such an issue. "My life is sad enough now that I was actually looking forwards to this year's convention. How terrible is that?"

 _"Fairly, but if you're looking for a liaison there's more than enough offers."_ And none from anyone that interested her. There'd be a lot of women dressed up as her, smiling and asking for their picture. The depressing part was repeating the computer.

Over and over again.

And again.

"Oh, of course. Usually fanboys who all want into my pants. Preferably if they're hotpants, for that matter." Gwen huffed out a sigh. "You know, why is it that I find that so unattractive and Jason seems to love it so much?"

 _"Because he basks in attention? Because he loved the role more than I think he ever loved himself."_ They were probably three steps from a discussion on the role of acting, and how a decent role was a suit one discarded or hung up, not something one internalized forever and ever blah blah blah.

Then again, it wasn't as if she had anything better to do today. If they hung up, she would probably end up drinking cheap sangria until she cried over her cheating boyfriend, and Gwen liked to think she was stronger than that.

Except when she wasn't.

"So tell me what you're doing next summer." That would take a while. Alexander always spent summers on the east coast or the UK.

It would save her from the sangria, anyway.

* * *

  
_1997_   
_"That bastard went and did it again!"_

She didn't have to ask what bastard, or who was calling her at quite that time of the evening in quite that tone of voice.

"Again." She didn't sound quite as angry as Alexander, but then, Alex always did seem to come out on the wrong end of things. The way his teeth clenched when he had to start in with _by Grabthar's hammer_ , it was a miracle he hadn't broken any of his molars, yet.

Gwen had a feeling that time was coming.

 _"Bloody hell, like the rest of us can't use the work, too,"_ Alex spat down the phone line, before going quiet. _"Jesus."_

Things had gotten ridiculously tight. Most of them were getting bit parts, at best, and making the con rounds. Alexander was doing better than most of them. Being British did have its plus side.

The British always made fantastic villains.

"Do you think he just doesn't realize?" She would have liked to think better of Jason. She really would have, because she had always had something of a, a thing for him. A yen. It had never come to anything, but there it was, and sometimes she thought Jason used it to herd them all into doing what he wanted them to do. He was the consummate conman, so it was no wonder they all wanted to talk to him instead of the rest of them. "But I think he has to know."

_"He has to know. We're all in the same damn boat, our careers or what's left of them tied up in serialized re-runs and the public appearances that feed his drinking problem."_

Unfortunately true.

Tommy worked a terrible part time job delivering pizzas while he went to community college. Fred had spent years ranging from strange guru to random meditation classes. Jason might be a conman, but some of the ones Fred had followed made him look like an amateur.

Now and again, Gwen landed something minor, but she spent most of her time taking random temp jobs as a secretary.

That had never been on her list of things she wanted to do. Ever.

"He's a selfish asshole, Alex. It's not exactly news."

 _"No, but he continues to amaze me on how selfish an asshole he can be."_ At least Alex had work, still, even if it wasn't at the calibre he wanted. Sort of. _"I feel like the reverse of a school teacher. I work all summer, and then try to stretch it to cover the rest of the bloody year."_

That was pretty horrible. "Well, at least you have that ridiculous romcom coming up, don't you? That's better than the rest of us. I mean, Fred is practically stoned all the time, Tommy's thinking about dropping out and taking a job in construction because the money is so much better." He already knew about her own stretch of non-jobs and secretarial runs.

_"Where I'm somewhere between sassy gay friend and butler, yes. Quite the stretch for my acting skills. He shouldn't drop out. He should just forget he ever had an acting job, and become an accountant. I find it very attractive most days."_

Which would explain his latest boyfriend, actually. At least somebody had a relationship even if she didn't. "At this point, I find it hard to disagree." Giving a dispirited sigh, she curled up on the chaise, carefully settling her teacup on the table beside it. "Maybe I ought to go back to school." Never mind that she had barely scraped her way out of algebra and geometry. She had been fantastic at non-math and science related classes. Maybe she could take up teaching. History, perhaps.

"There's nothing that says you have to be an actor forever." Except that she loved it. When she could do it, she loved it and she'd loved that stupid show, and Jason, even if he was a money-grubbing asshole for a team leader.

The fact that she even thought of him that way said all sorts of ridiculous things, she supposed. "Coming from a man who just had a part in _Starship Troopers_ , I find the suggestion that I move on entirely suspect."

 _"At least I don't have to worry about going to conventions for it,"_ Alexander smirked down the line.

"Oh, I wouldn't count on it. After all, the show," as if it were the only one somehow, never mind that there were thousands, "still has its own convention and it's been almost twenty years, Alex. Never doubt the likelihood of fans with crazy ideas."

_"And where does that leave us? Still all circling around one another like there's any hope that our careers will turn around. Jason just got shot down for a soap opera."_

Oh. God. "There really is no hope." That was the most appalling realization she had ever had. They were going to be stuck doing stupid conventions and scraping by for the rest of their lives.

Gwen was pretty sure that she needed a drink.

And maybe some Valium.

 _"Turned down for a bloody guest spot on a soap opera,"_ Alex repeated, like it was supposed to hit her harder to hear it the second time. She could hear him sipping something. _"Hope is for the feeble minded."_

"Or the ones of us who don't have anything else left." She heard him sigh over the phone. "Oh, come on, Alex. You know it's true."

 _"You could go back to school? I don't know. I can't solve my own problems."_ Crap jobs, crap movies, probably more conventions. It was a never ending cycle, one she didn't want to contemplate. Not in the least, and yet what choice did they have?

A drink it was.

"I know. I know." She really, honestly did. "I'll... I'll talk to you tomorrow, Alex." When she'd had time for a drink or maybe a bit of a cry or at least some sleep.

 _"Right. And I'll see you at the convention. They've found one of the 'lost' episodes,"_ Alex sighed. Unaired, cancelled, half-assed.

Like everything. _"Good night."_

"Good night, Alex." Gwen knew they would talk again tomorrow because they always did. Even if they spent the night arguing or bitching or maudlin, they inevitably talked tomorrow, and it was usually a better day after that.

It almost had to be, considering how horrible tonight's conversation had been.

* * *

  
_2000_  
Amazing.

Three years ago, she had been spending nights on the phone with Alexander, both of them bitching or yelling or on occasion crying (more her, less Alex). There hadn't been much to be happy about then. There hadn't been much to be happy about a year ago, but then everything had changed. Everything, and nothing was ever going to be the same again. It had meaning again, meaning beyond their parts, the scripts on paper, and that was something Gwen thought she'd been always searching for and never found.

Once upon a time, she had thought that it was Jason. It all revolved around Jason, didn't it? Or they all thought that it did. Maybe it had, because they had all been in his orbit no matter how deep they all sank into the horror they had been living in when the Thermians had come into their lives.

Maybe it had. Maybe so many things, but what it all came down to in the end was that there were more things than just Jason in the world. Still, they all ended up with him again in filming, but everything... everything felt so much more open. There was a whole world out there, a whole _universe_. Something none of them would ever have seen if they hadn't been in _Galaxy Quest_ , something brilliant and special where they, all of them, were so much more than has-been actors. They were big damn heroes out there, and it changed all of them. It changed who they were, how they saw themselves, what they wanted out of life.

Mostly. It still didn't stop Alex and Jason from bitching about who was chewing scenes worse during filming.

But she was content -- she had a character with plot, and if she ended up type-cast after that it wasn't such a bad type to be cast as. They were having so much fun together, nothing at all like the last two decades had been. The show had actual funding, more than enough, and the sets weren't all tin foil and cardboard anymore. She'd had calls from a few directors, and nobody had fondled her tits at all.

It was pretty amazing.

And.... and there was Jason, still. There was always Jason, and since he'd kissed her, things had been better. Strangely. Less tense, less he could hold over her head as if it were ever a secret that there was tension there. And maybe things would turn out the way she wanted, or maybe she would just keep on being strong and being herself because she had learned that she could be. It was great to be part of a team, and it was fantastic to be strong enough all on her own.

"Gwen! Gwen, would you like to come out to dinner tonight?" Alex, waving her over. His hair still looked sticky from where they'd pulled off the prosthetic.

Might as well. They still talked more often than not, and he was up for a major role in some sort of magic movie. "Sure. Is it just us?"

"Unless you want to grab someone else?" He looked relaxed, and a little less angry about having to say his lines. A little less wound up about Jason in general, too. Then again, they'd all changed so much.

One trip to see the galaxy, and the whole world opened up into something new and wonderful. Maybe that had been the thing of it all along –- they had all been worried about themselves personally, and not anyone else. Not the team, not the world, not anything, and now they knew. They knew what was out there, what was possible, and it had changed all of them for the better.

"We could invite everyone else," she offered and watched him pause.

He seemed reluctant, but she knew him too well. He'd been her friend for much too long to be able to fool her at all. "Even Guy?"

"Even Guy." Gwen couldn't help smiling at that.

Alex sighed. "Right. How is it that the Alien is the least objectionable new addition?" And with that, Alex headed off to round up the rest of them.

She couldn't help smiling even as she leaned against the wall for just a moment, wondering at how different the world was. How different her life was.

And in the end, Gwen thought that she wouldn't change any of it, not for love or money. It was her life, their lives, good and bad and all the things in between, and she knew that it was exactly what she made of it, and exactly what she wanted.

There couldn't be anything better than that.


End file.
